Orlando Undertakers Face Little Threat

April 22, 1990|By Kenneth Michael Of The Sentinel Staff

While retail coffin stores have not yet invaded the metropolitan Orlando market, local funeral home managers doubt they would pose a major challenge because, they say, strong competition already exists in the sale of caskets.

''Certainly we have concerns about the storefront coffin shops, but we have not become involved because we don't have the problem here yet,'' said Bill Honaker, manager of the six Baldwin-Fairchild Funeral Homes in Orange County.

Besides funeral homes, most cemeteries in the Orlando-Winter Park area, unless owned by a municipality, compete by selling caskets as part of their ''pre-need'' burial plans. ''Pre-need,'' a popular practice in the funeral industry, refers to funeral arrangements made in advance.

Only a few Orlando funeral home executives said they place a surcharge or ''handling fee'' on a casket bought from another supplier.

Asher Neel, president of Woodlawn Memorium-Funeral Home & Funeral Park in west Orange County, said he doubted that storefront coffin businesses will gain public popularity. ''I don't believe they will be successful because at the time of death, the consumer will not choose that alternative.''